Monthly Archives: March 2017

1714 Blind Software Engineer (Mar. 29, 2017)
Show Notes
Computers are very accessible to the visually impaired these days. There are also many attractive employment opportunities for those with computer-related skills, particularly if they know how to program. Hosts Nancy and Peter Torpey talk with Tom Shults, a blind engineer, about his career and how he uses these skills in developing new hardware devices.

1713 Ultra Sports Challenges (Mar. 22, 2017)
Show Notes
Erik Weihenmayer, the first blind person to summit Mount Everest, has released a new book called “No Barriers: A Blind Man’s Journey to Kayak the Grand Canyon”. Hosts Nancy and Peter Torpey talk with him about his adventures and about “No Barriers”, an organization he co-founded whose mission is to help people with challenges face barriers head on.

1712 Data Visualization Updates from SAS (Mar. 15, 2017)
Show Notes
The SAS Graphics Accelerator makes graphical data accessible to the visually impaired by dynamically producing alternative presentations in the form of verbal description, sonification, and tabular data. Ed Summers, a blind engineer and head of the accessibility team at SAS, demos the tools and discusses their use with hosts Nancy and Peter Torpey.

1711 Teaching Blind Children (Mar. 8, 2017)
Show Notes
Carol Puchalski has worked for over 30 years as a developmental psychology consultant at the Anchor Center for Blind Children in Colorado. She recently returned from a trip to Uganda where she volunteered to assist a school for the blind. Hosts Nancy and Peter Torpey talk with Carol about her experiences helping blind children both in the U.S. and abroad.

1710 Graphiti Refreshable Tactile Graphics Display (Mar. 1, 2017)
Show Notes
Graphiti is a dynamic multi-level tactile touch display designed to give the blind access to graphical and pictorial information at an affordable price. Hosts Nancy and Peter Torpey talk with Venkatesh Chari, President and CTO at Orbit Research, and Ken Perry, project manager at APH, about this revolutionary, page-size display and how it can be used.

A weekly, haf hour radio show / podcast covering a wide variety of topics of interest to the visually impaired